Step it Out
by IncestuousChinchillas
Summary: Oneshot, AU. Zelda is a noble lady. Link is a simple soldier. One night, he sneaks into her castle on a bet... Rated for minor swearing


AN: Inspired by the Irish song "Step it Out, Mary." I've only heard The High Kings' version, but I'm sure there are other good ones as well. But the song contains spoilers...

Step it Out

The world sighed that night they first saw each other, as if it knew all that came next. The moon had risen large and fat and near enough to touch that evening, almost like it were watching in anticipation for their encounter. It seemed to him as though the whole world knew, and was hanging still with bated breath. He'd like to think they were that significant, but he also knew that it was probably just a collection of happenstance that he was over-interpreting. Regardless of what the earth and sky thought of it, both of them knew that one day, when they'd lost all their wits and could hardly recognize their best friends, they would still have that night clear as yesterday in their minds.

He'd snuck in on a bet, hoping only to get a glimpse of that beautiful golden-haired girl he knew lived there. It was no great feat to climb the wall, nothing difficult for him to sneak past the three or four sentries standing watch. In fact, the most taxing part had been crossing the bridge over the river just in front of the castle she lived in. His friends had watched from the opposite bank, hooting with laughter as he crept along the great stone walls, scrambling up a trellis of ivy. The clouds worked in his favor, trudging their fat way in front of the moon and casting his little patch of world in shadow.

Until he reached her, that is.

He perched on the inside wall of her little courtyard when the moon finally shoved past all the overlarge slate-colored clouds, throwing down its light on what he decided must be the most beautiful creature on all the Goddesses' earth. His eyes went wide as silver moonbeams met flowing golden locks, the breeze tugging slightly at the ends of her loose hair, the hem of her nightgown. The expression on her face was one of slight trouble, but even fury would look graceful on those magnificent features, he thought to himself. His mind slowed to a stop, stilled by her great beauty, but his tongue was not so inclined.

"Hark, fair maiden, who glows so in the moonlight! Doth mine eyes deceive me, or do I lay them on an angel?"

He clapped a hand over his mouth and instantly felt himself blush bright enough to replace the sun. What on earth had he just said?

She jumped at his words, looking over at him, and giggled at his embarrassment.

"And so eloquent a poet should visit me and sing praises! Oh, but you flatter me so!" she replied in turn, grinning at the absurdity of their faux-antique language. "Come down from there and recite your verses from the ground, or someone will surely see you. They'll put you in jail if you're caught."

"Whatever you say, princess," he replied, still halfway dumbstruck. He then attempted to hop off the seven-foot wall without pulling his eyes from her, and he fell to the ground in a heap. She gasped and hurried back inside, to the staircase and door that would take her to the courtyard, hiking her skirt up above her ankles. She knelt next to his crumpled body and laid a hand gently on his shoulder. "Are you all right?" the girl asked breathlessly. He replied, or at least, she thought he did, but his words were muffled from his face being shoved in the grass. "Pardon me?" The blonde girl gave him a quizzical look.

"I said," he clarified, rolling onto his back so his face was clear of the ground, "I'm fine, but I've made a complete idiot of myself."

She laughed lightly, and he was further enchanted. "I think it was charming. You were honest, at least, and poetic, if a bit odd."

He grinned like a fool. "You really think so?"

"Oi! Who's there?" The loud yell came from around the corner, through the courtyard gate. The girl clapped her hands to her mouth, but the boy scrambled to his feet.

"Guard!" he hissed. "Pretend I'm not here." Quick as a squirrel, he shot up a tree and crouched there in its branches. She quickly stood and returned to the walking path, then proceeded to stroll along, calm as anything. When the guard finally strode in, she looked as though she'd simply been ambling through the garden all night.

"Milady, did you see someone 'ere earlier? I coulda swore I saw summat…."

"No, I haven't seen anything. Perhaps it was just a shadow cast by a cloud? The darkness plays tricks on the eyes, as I'm sure you well know." She smiled at him. "But thank you for worrying. It makes me feel safer to know my sentries are so vigilant."

The man puffed up with pride, although he probably didn't know what 'vigilant' meant. The boy crouching in the tree mouthed the word as well, confounded. But the guard saluted nonetheless and continued on his beat, swaggering with the words of the girl proudly in his mind. As soon as he was gone, she looked around for the tree the boy had hidden in, but she didn't remember which it was, and she couldn't for the life of her see him. Suddenly she heard a noise behind her and turned, squeaking in surprise to see him standing there. He laughed sheepishly. "Sorry. I forget myself sometimes."

"So you scare people half to death?" she asked incredulously, but not cruelly.

He rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. "I'm a scout in the army, so I'm too used to being sneaky."

She gasped. "You're a soldier?"

He nodded with a slight frown. "Not the best job, I know, but I can't really do nothing else. See, my mother and father died when I was little, and I left my aunt's house soon as I could. 'Course, the only work a boy my age could find was in the army, so I was a flute boy for a long time, before they figured out that me and sneaking about mix real well, so they had me spying by the time I was fifteen." He laughed. "But you don't care about that."

"No, no," she protested. "I really do. I've never met a soldier before, other than the castle guards, but I don't think they're exactly the same thing.

He shook his head and started to walk through the courtyard. "Not really. They just patrol, that's only part of what soldiers do."

"Oh, but they also have swords and bows and arrows and I know they could fight off a siege."

He shrugged. "Soldiers do more. But that's… that's not a pleasant topic. Can we talk about som ething else?"

Her cheeks developed a pink tint. "Oh! I didn't realize I'd- never mind. Are you from here?"

"Naw. My friend lives here, and we're on leave right now for a few months, so I thought I'd come back with him rather than go to my aunt's house. Terrible place, her house."

"So where did you grow up?" He was surprised by her genuine curiosity. He was used to people not giving a rat's tail about his life. After all, he was no one important, just a common soldier.

They spent hours talking, and he was just beginning to see the light of dawn peeking over the horizon when she let out a wide yawn, covered politely, of course, with her hand.

"I'm sorry!" he said with a grimace. "I wasn't paying attention to the time. It's fine for me cause I haven't got to do anything tomorrow, but you've got all your... whatever it is you-"

She waved away his apology. "It's perfectly fine; I can just say that I'm feeling ill. They'll let me stay in bed all day if I like."

He sighed in relief. "That's good. I'd feel awful if I knew I'd kept you up."

She laughed. "You know, before you came here tonight, I couldn't sleep. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't sleep, so I came outside, and that was right when you spoke."

He grinned. "I have fantastic luck."

She smiled. "I suppose you do." She chewed her lip for a moment, and then looked up at him. "Can you... could you possibly come again tomorrow night? It's just that I've never had the chance to talk to someone as unique and fascinating as you and I-"

"I don't understand half the words you just said, but yeah. I'll be back tomorrow." He smiled, and she was struck by how handsome he was, even with the tan and the callouses on his hands and the dirt on his face. He wasn't a refined gentleman like she was used to, and that made him all the more enticing to her. Besides, he was fun and different and she loved talking to him. There was just something captivating about his lilting accent, his rough speech, the way he seemed completely engaged in whatever she was saying, even though she sometimes had to correct herself into using simpler vocabulary, because, although he wasn't stupid, he wasn't educated.

"What I meant to say," she corrected herself, "was that you're by far the most interesting man I've ever met and I would love to get to spend time with you again."

He grinned. "Same to you, milady."

"Zelda."

"Hm?"

"My name is Zelda."

He held out a hand for her to shake, like common people did. It was no gentleman's handshake, at the least. "And I'm Link. It's a pleasure to meet you."

She smiled. "Same."

* * *

><p>The next month passed in much the same vein. Every night, from dust until about midnight, Link would go visit her in the castle. During the day, he worked odd jobs around the town, trying to earn a penny here and there. Three times a week, he visited with the priest, not to pray or ask for penance, but to learn. He always felt like a bumpkin when he didn't understand words Zelda used, so he had decided to learn more words, and that started with reading. It wasn't easy, but he threw himself into it with vigor, and soon enough he could struggle through a few pages of a book aloud.<p>

On her side of things, she was taking more and more of an interest in what her servants did. She started speaking to her maid almost as an equal, and she accidentally adopted a few of Link's less refined phrases, and her father stared agape at her when she accidentally let slip a "peasant word". Needless to say, he was furious, and he ordered that she be taught even more vocabulary, so she could find a way to express herself that didn't involve such vulgar and uneducated forms of speech. "It wasn't as if I used a swear word," she told Link one night. "All I did was say 'ain't.' You do it all the time; I don't see why I shouldn't be able to."

"It's gutter words," he replied. "You're too pretty for gutter words. I gotta say, I don't like you using 'em either, but as long as you don't turn into a sailor I suppose it's not like it's doing any harm."

Zelda scowled. "I just don't like it when my father tries to control every last aspect of my life."

* * *

><p>Link was horribly, horribly confused.<p>

No matter what he did, he couldn't for the life of him sort out the jumbled mess in his head. He'd never been so befuddled in all his life, the poor boy, and he quickly figured out that at the center of it all was Zelda, the fun, beautiful, interesting, amazing, rich girl he'd been going to see every night.

Finally, he went to his friend Mikhail. He was good with people, and he had lots of experience with women, so Link figured he'd be good to ask.

"Mik?" he greeted, knocking on the doorframe to his friend's room.

"Hey, Link, what brings ya here?" the other man replied with a grin.

"I need help. See, there's this girl, and she's got my head all twisted up in knots. I'm always thinking about her, and whenever I talk to her I someways end up making a complete idiot of myself. That is, sometimes I'm a fool cause I can't think straight, and sometimes I've got my head in order enough to know what the hell I'm saying. It's so confusing…. And then there's the way I _feel _when I'm around her. It's like… like when you're marching straight at a line of pike men, but you ain't gonna stop for nothin'. Almost the same rush, the same dear-Goddesses-I'm-going-to-die feeling. And-"

"Stop," Mikhail interrupted with a short laugh. Link huffed out a frazzled breath and ran a hand through his hair. "Say no more. You poor fool, dontcha see it?"

"See what? If I knew what was going on, d'you think I'd be here?"

Mikhail laughed. "Poor idjit! You're in love!"

Link choked on his words. "I-I'm what?"

"You-are-in-LOVE with this gal!" Mikhail announced gleefully.

Link fell onto a chair nearby as it all fell into place. He'd never been in love, never even had a girl, but he had heard what it was like, and it all matched him. He just didn't understand why he didn't see it before.

And then it hit him- he was in love with a privileged, wealthy noble's daughter. Could he possibly be anymore foolish? What was he, a long-orphaned soldier boy, with just a horse and a few coins to his name? Nothing. He was nothing, and she was everything. He was the dirt under her fine, expensive slippers- not that there'd ever _be _any dirt under her slippers. He was the dirt in her garden, the dirt she didn't even touch. That was what he was.

"I… thanks, Mik. I'll see you later…." He tripped over the floor on his way out.

Of course, this meant that he couldn't see her tonight. Or probably ever again, for that matter. He felt sick at the thought, but swallowed it. Nothing could come of this, or it would be a disaster for them both.

* * *

><p>Zelda lay awake for the eighth night in a row.<p>

Link hadn't been in over a week, and she was beginning to worry. So she made the decision that, if he wasn't coming to her, she would have to go to him. She couldn't stand to be away from him so long, because, as she'd figured out during his absence, she was head over heels in love with the soldier boy.

He'd told her once where he was staying in the town, so she decided to go there the next day. She'd go for a ride, escape her chaperone, and sneak off to see him. It had been years since she'd pulled a stunt like that, but this was unimaginably important.

She barely slept that night, and went through the next day with a fidgety restlessness, before finally informing her father, around noon, that she was going for a ride. It was no feat to speed ahead of her guard, tie the horse in the forest, and run to the town. She wandered through the streets, completely lost, before she finally asked for directions.

Tiredly the young woman rapped on the door to the little house.

"Aye?" asked the sweet-looking woman who greeted her.

"I'm looking for Link. He told me he was staying here. Is he in?"

The woman shook her head and frowned, clicking her tongue. "In? He's hardly left in a week. It's like he's afeared of something."

"Is he ill?"

"Nay, I reckon he's just avoidin' summat."

"O-oh." Zelda's spirits fell. What if he was avoiding her? No matter, she had to talk to him. "May I go speak to him?"

"Sure, sure, go right ahead, miss." The older woman led Zelda to a room off down the hall. She knocked softly on the door. "Link? Somebody here to see ya, lad."

"Thank you," he replied, as he opened the door. His eyes went wide when he saw Zelda. "Ah… um… h-hello… Zelda…."

* * *

><p>His heart had kicked up to double-speed, and his mind immediately fell into disarray. Her insides were instantly replaced with all manner of butterflies and moths, and she couldn't have said something intelligent if her life depended on it.<p>

The landlady quietly walked away, sensing that this was a private conversation that needed to be had. The two stared at each other for a long time.

Finally, Zelda regained her powers of speech. "Link… have you… are you angry with me?"

He blinked, surprised. "Angry? Why on earth would I be angry?"

She smiled. "That's a relief." Just as quickly, a frown pulled at her lips. "So, if you're not angry with me, why haven't you been coming to see me for the past week? It's terribly lonely."

He ran a hand through his hair and racked his brains. "I just… I couldn't."

"Why?" she demanded.

"It's just that… I… and I can't… I can't tell you why, Zelda. I'm sorry. I'm too scared of what it would do- to the both of us, and our friendship. You're one of my greatest friends, Zelda, and I don't want to lose that over…."

She felt a lump rising in her throat. "That's a bloody shame, Link," she replied, relishing his shock at her light swear word. "Because I thought we could trust each other, and now you're keeping secrets from me. I'm not upset that you won't tell me, because I'm sure you have your reasons, I just- I just…." She clenched her fists and screwed her courage to the sticking place, tears starting to slide down her face. Would this be where their friendship ended? Either way, she had to tell him. Now or later, the truth would eventually come out.

"It's just," she continued, "that I didn't want to be a great friend to you." He recoiled, hurt, and she quickly backpedaled. "No, no, what I mean by that is... it's… I want to be more than a friend to you, Link, I… I love you, and I don't want you to leave me."

His breath caught in his throat, and he felt his body take control, his mind struck dumb by her admission. Running on an instinct he didn't know he had, he took her hand and pulled her close to him, then took her face gently in his other hand and tilted it up, their lips meeting in a fierce, fiery first kiss.

She made a slight sound of surprise, but quickly relented to the motion of his lips. When they finally broke the kiss, he moved his hands to her waist and the back of her neck, and then whispered, "I love you too."

That time it was her who went on tiptoe to softly caress his lips with hers.

* * *

><p>Link felt like singing. He felt like dancing. He wanted to tell the whole world that he loved her and she loved him and nothing could be better, but he knew it had to be a secret. No one could know, or he'd be in jail faster than he could say her name.<p>

After that day, they stopped meeting in her garden. She rarely had the chance to leave her house, so he took it upon himself to sneak her out every night. They went for rides through the huge, moonlit grass fields, they lied next to wide, still lakes, they strolled along nature's secret gardens. Sometimes, they even felt daring enough to steal away during the daytime, but that was a rare adventure.

So it continued for months, the two young people living in each blissful moment as it came, not sparing a thought for danger or future or anything that could spoil their perfect happiness.

Until Link's summons came.

She saw the dark look in his eyes when he jumped lightly off the wall, and immediately asked, "What's wrong?"

"I'll tell you later," he whispered. "Come on, let's go."

They rode off on his red war charger, inherited from a rich uncle, and finally dismounted near a small forest pond, fed by a waterfall, with a little stream running off to the side.

Link was silent, staring out at the water, the troubled look on his face only deepening. Zelda didn't say anything, feeling that he would start talking when he felt ready.

Rather than say a word, though, he pulled her close, wrapping his arms tightly around her. She buried her face in the crook of his neck. Gathering his courage, he murmured in her ear, "They've summoned me back to the army. My leave of absence is over. I'm called back within the month, or I'll be branded a deserter."

She gasped, pulling back slightly so she could look him in the eye. "What?"

He grimaced. "I never left the army, Zelda. They were going to call me back eventually, it was just a matter of time."

She held him tight again, tears pricking at her eyes. "Please don't go. I couldn't stand it if you left- the worrying, the fear- what if you never came back? I'd just spend the whole time imagining worst-case scenarios. Just thinking about it…. Don't go, Link. Don't leave me."

"I wish I could stay, Zelda. You have no idea how much I want to just ignore them. But if I do, I'll be a deserter, and deserters get the death penalty." He rested his cheek atop her head, breathing in the flowery scent of her hair. "I promise I'll do my best to come back in one piece. And I'll write you, every day, and I'll always be thinking of you. And whenever someone asks, 'Link, why are you smiling like a goon in the middle of a war!' I'll just say, 'Cause I'm in love with the most incredible girl in the world.'"

Zelda managed a choked, tearful laugh. "And every day I'll go and I'll pray for you, and I'll write you every day as well. And we'll be together. We will."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

Link paused, then whispered in her ear, "Marry me."

"What?"

"Say you'll marry me when I come back from the war."

She smiled. "Do you even need to ask? Of course I'll marry you. I promise."

He kissed her.

* * *

><p>The next day, Zelda was summoned to her father's study, and she felt immediately uneasy. Her father rarely spoke to her, and when he did, it was usually to give her an order or to chastise her. Nothing good could come of this talk, she was sure of it. Her ominous feelings worsened when she walked into the room and saw an older man, short and plump, but dressed in fine clothes, with a small grey mustache and a sweaty forehead.<p>

"Daughter," began the big man in his booming voice. "As I'm sure you know, you have long been of marriageable age. Too long, in fact, but I wished to find only the best husband for my beloved daughter."

Zelda felt sick. Was this sweaty, flabby little man to be her father's choice of husband? Immediately an image of Link was called to mind- tall and leanly muscular, with dirty-blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes that smiled just for her. No fat, no mustache, no sweat.

"This, my dear daughter, is the Baron Phillip of Narith."

The chubby man smiled an oily smile, causing his watery little eyes to squint. Perhaps it was just the effect her beloved had on her, but he seemed unbearably disgusting.

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, miss Zelda," the baron greeted in a nasally voice. Even Link's voice was like an angel in comparison with this suitor.

"Same to you," she replied, holding back her distaste.

"I had heard of your beauty even in Narith far to the north, so I decided to come and try my luck courting you."

"That's… very nice." She had no idea what to say, but she managed to keep her words civil enough.

The little man's mustache twitched, but he turned back to her father.

"I must say, your daughter is indeed a beauty. I realize it may be a bit… forward… of me to ask so quickly, but what would be her bride price? I have gold and silver, lands too vast to behold with the eye. I can build her a mansion, and I, so rashly, have a wedding ring for her as well."

Zelda was horrified. Not now! Not just as Link was about to leave! She couldn't let this happen.

"No!" she shrieked. "I don't want your gold or silver or your bloody mansion or your damned land! I'm in love with a soldier, I've promised to marry _him_! I won't go near you, you slimy, bilious gutter-pig! I'd sooner marry a… a dead _pigeon_ than the likes of _you_!"

"_Zelda!_" her father snapped. "Stop this at _once_! You _will _marry the Baron! This _Sunday_, and you'll wear the ring he brought you. Am I understood?"

"I hate you both!" she screamed, before running out of the room.

"You are not to leave your chambers until the wedding!" her father yelled after her.

The girl flung herself across her bed, tears in her eyes. "I _won't _marry him!" she wailed. "I won't I won't I _won't_!" She collapsed into uncontrollable sobs, and cried for hours.

When she finally calmed down, she comforted herself with the thought that Link would be there that night. But Sunday was tomorrow- what could they possibly do between now and then?

She decided almost instantly. She was running away with him _tonight_, to hell with all else.

* * *

><p>When Link hopped off the wall that night, Zelda instantly tugged him behind a bush and started talking.<p>

"My father is trying to force me to marry a disgusting, fat little baron from up in the north and I won't, but he's making me, and the wedding is tomorrow, and we have to leave _tonight_ if we want to get away at all." She paused. "Please say you'll take me away from here."

"Wait, your father is trying to marry you off?"

"Yes, and…." She stopped herself, ashamed.

"And what?"

"A-and I… well, I told him about us. That's the other reason we have to leave- I said I had already promised to marry a soldier, so I wouldn't marry the baron."

Link nodded gravely. "We should go, then."

She threw her arms around him. "Thank you, Link. I love you."

"I love you too."

They snuck out over the walls as they always had, but something went wrong as they were dropping down the outermost defenses, because a guard saw them and sounded the alarm. Link leaped into action, flying onto his horse and tugging Zelda up behind him.

He'd broken out of many a castle before, and he knew that the quickest way would be over the bridge, not through the river as he'd come. He spurred his great red charger into action and galloped over the bridge.

She saw it before he did- the guard at the top of the tower with an arrow nocked, aiming straight for them. She screamed, but it was too late.

With that sickening _thunk_ of arrow sinking into flesh, the shaft buried itself in Link's chest. He coughed once, blood spilling out of his mouth, then toppled off of the horse, over the side of the bridge, and into the river.

The only pause between his falling and her leaping after him was when she screamed his name.

* * *

><p>Their bodies washed up on the shore of the river the next day. Her father wept bitter tears of regret, and paid well for both of them to get a good funeral.<p>

When their corpses were pulled out of the water, their hands were so tightly entwined that none could pry them apart. And that is how the two secret lovers stayed, for the rest of eternity.

They were together.


End file.
